Born in a small Sicilian town where he trained in ceramics, Salvatore Meli moved to Florence after World War II, before briefly joining sculptor Francesco Messina in Milan.

 

In 1950 he then settled permanently in Rome, where he worked all his life. In the beginning he set up his studio in the Villa Massimo, where he met leading protagonists of the Italian art scene such as Renato Guttuso, who dedicated an essay to him on his first solo show at La Vetrina di Chiurazzi (Rome) in 1951. He also befriended Marino Mazzacurati, whom he assisted in his classes at Rome’s Accademia di Belle Arti.

 

His highly recognizable style is characterized by organic shapes and motifs inspired by contemporary artistic languages, including archaism and surrealism, with bright colors and often visible traces of the sculpting process.

 

Numerous awards, including the Premio Faenza in 1953, contributed to his fame, which quickly spread beyond Italy’s borders, from the Piccadilly gallery in London (1957) to the International Exhibition of Ceramics in Bue nos Aires (1963). Between 1950 and 1970, he presented regularly at the Faenza competition (1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1965), the Quadriennale in Rome (1959, 1965, 1973), the Venice Biennale (1958) and the Milan Triennale (1951, 1954, 1957, 1963, 1968), establishing himself as a key player in Italian ceramics. His works integrated prestigious private and public collections. Important retrospectives of late Terra Incognita: Italy’s Ceramic Revival, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art (London 2009) and La scultura ceramica contempo ranea in Italia, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome 2015). 38